My raffle tickets...

Brought all of Yau Ma Tei to the yard.

One of Hong Kong's big charity fundraising events was held on weekend and I got lumped last week with thirty raffle tickets to sell.

Since most of my friends have very little buying power I anticipated having to buy a lot of them myself. That was until Daisy took over as my sales manager.

She was working in the shop when I asked her if she wanted to buy a ticket. She bought four and then sold several to her colleague and customers who were shopping at the time.

We then asked the lady in the book store next door who said that she isn't lucky and wanted to give ten dollars without buying a ticket. From there we went to the key copying stall, the shoe shop, the Nepali hairdresser and the bag shop. My real estate agent and her daughter bought seven tickets, making sure they picked their lucky numbers. We were planning to sell some to the naughty nun in the Buddhist centre but we ran out before we got there.

I couldn't believe how keen people were to buy the tickets. Daisy told me that Hong Kong people are very good in giving to charity. I teased her that they jump at any excuse to gamble.

I was quite disturbed when Mama, the old can-collecting lady, insisted on buying a ticket. At ten dollars she would have to collect 1000 cans to cover the cost. In my guilt, I've started collecting cans from friends to give to her when she drops by Daisy's shop in the evenings.

It's going to take a while to reach 1000 but she was very grateful for the first five I gave her yesterday. Her thanks were so heartfelt that Daisy suggested I give her a kiss. Mama then said I should kiss the beautiful girl (i.e. Daisy) so no one got kissed in the end.